Lifelong cooking enthusiast Tom Atkocaitis spent over 30 years in the high-tech industry before he decided to take a leap of faith, open a restaurant and be his own boss.

“If I didn’t do this now in my career, who knows? Now or never,” he said. “I’m in my 50s and want to do something.”

Lowell Street Eatery opened in mid-December for lunch and started serving dinner earlier this month. The time frame for getting Lowell Street Eatery ready for business was rather short: he acquired the location in November and started serving the following month.

“Fortunately, a lot of the equipment was here,” he said. “Plates and utensils and pots and pans and all of the gear, stoves, the dishwashing systems … all of that stuff was already in place.”

Atkocaitis’s vision for the restaurant is to keep the menu diverse and changing.

“If you come in a month from now you may see a lot of familiar things, but you’re also probably going to see something new and different,” he said.

He wants to experiment when he feels inspired, then see the customer reaction and go from there.

“Say that I want to see if Manchester is going to want [a] Thai dish...or some Japanese [dish] or some Polish dish or a dish from South America,” he said. “I’m not going to mind putting it on the menu and trying it out.”

Currently on the menu are potato kugle, Chicago hot dogs, fish tacos and house-made cheesecake.

“I’m not limiting myself to an Italian restaurant or American contemporary,” he said. “If I want to try different things, I’m going to see if my customers respond to it.”

In the next months, Atkocaitis hopes to take advantage of the major holidays to help attract more people and keep the rhythm of business going.

“We’re still kicking around our St. Patrick’s Day menu. … We’re going to offer a lot of the super-traditional St. Patrick’s Day fare here,” he said.

As the weather gets warmer, he’s looking to put tables and chairs outdoors, giving passersby the option of dining in the spring sun.

“I’m making sure I have a continuous presence in the area,” he said, “[and become] part of the fabric of the restaurant community.”